Is it even worth watching other than having the ability to say I've seen it?

"As a matter of fact I only work with the feeling of something magical, something seemingly significant. And to keep it magical I don't want to know the story involved, I just want the hypnotic effect of it somehow seeming significant without knowing why." - Len Lye

Is it even worth watching other than having the ability to say I've seen it?

yes, but only because it satisfies your own curiosity.

one of very, very few surviving prints is available to the public "for educational purposes" in Rochester, NY through the eastman museum. i hear they have a relatively nice 35mm print that you can get screened there, but kubrick told them not to include it in events.

Obviously what you are doing right now is called (in my upcoming book of psychology at least) validation. I think it's a normal thing to do. People will reply, say anything, and then you're gonna do what you were subconsciently thinking of doing all along.

Stanley Kubrick enthusiasts and fans, rejoice a little bit, because the director's first feature film, "Fear And Desire" may finally be getting a proper DVD release.

Following a screening of the film at the Los Angeles’ American Cinematheque, Caroline Frick Page, curator of motion pictures for the George Eastman House who hosted the screening hinted that a complete restoration of the film in conjunction with a DVD company isn't out of the question saying, “I think that a major restoration effort probably will be undertaken between George Eastman House and probably another company. I think you could potentially see a high-quality DVD that’s a collaboration between the country’s biggest archives [because] there is now apparently a negative. It’s not necessarily complete, but there is a negative.”

Apparently a new, partial negative of the film has been found in a long closed film lab in Puerto Rico and in addition to the George Eastman House negative, which is believed to be the only copy in existence, there is now some material to go on to produce a proper restoration. As for the film, it's a tale about four soldiers trapped behind enemy lines and the madness that ensues (themes he obviously revisits more than once later in his career).

But there are some hurdles. Firstly, while the Kubrick estate having no claim on the copyright to the film (it's owned by the children of the film's distributor), they will undoubtedly still be an important voice and one that anyone trying to get a DVD made will want to have on their side. Kubrick was famously rumored to have tried to buy up all the prints of the film to destroy them, but generally speaking, he didn't hold much regard for his early, lesser known works and shorts that which really only gained interest after he had found his footing as a director.

But the other hurdle is a financial one. Restoration is expensive and it will take a DVD company with the right talent and bank account (ahem, The Criterion Collection) to do the film right. But again, will Criterion (or any other company) want to take on an endeavor with a Kubrick film without the blessing of the estate?

It remains to be seen how this will all play out, but if the DVD release Kubrick's early union documentary "The Seafarers" is anything to go by, it is possible. That film has participation from Katharine Kubrick and features (oddly) a commentary by Roger Avary. And certainly, having a DVD release is preferable to the bootleg copies and YouTube videos that are the only way to watch the film currently.

We often went to the cinema, the screen would light up and we would tremble, but also, increasingly often, Madeleine and I were disappointed. The images had dated, they jittered, and Marilyn Monroe had gotten terribly old. We were sad, this wasn't the film we had dreamed of, this wasn't the total film that we all carried around inside us, this film that we would have wanted to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, that we would have wanted to live.

It'll be released in 4:3 format, piss poor video quality and no extras. Two years later the Kubrick estate will release a "16x9" widescreen version with a made up trailer, cast information. Skip to a year later the real version is in the hands of the people who give a shit about Kube.

it's a curio at best. seeing it doesn't reveal anything except that even great directors have to start somewhere.

it is only of interest to completists and to people who place too much importance on the EARLY part of someone's career rather than the later parts. i am not averse to obsessing over everything kubrick, but i think there is much more to be gained from a snippet of information regarding The Aryan Papers (for example finding the script for it) than to see the entirety of Fear and Desire restored immaculately. it's pretty much worthless, like The Dirk Diggler Story or Cigarettes and Red Vines. the coolest part of this story is that they found the print in Puerto Rico.

Kino Lorber Releasing Stanley Kubrick's Rarely Seen First Film 'Fear And Desire' On DVD & Blu-ray This FallSource: Playlist

Get ready Stanley Kubrick completists because Kino Lorber have some very exciting news for you today. Nearly 60 years after it first hit theaters, and then subsequently disappeared, only to be seen in shoddy bootlegs, the company is finally giving the iconic director's first film "Fear And Desire" a proper DVD and Blu-ray release this fall, in a newly stored edition of the film from the Library Of Congress.

But as Kubrick himself admitted, this was a movie that was very much from a first time filmmaker (he was 24 years old at the time). Describing it at one time as "a bumbling amateur film exercise," the movie stars future filmmaker Paul Mazursky and Virginia Leith, the film follows a squad of soldiers who have crash-landed behind enemy lines and must work their way downriver to rejoin their unit. In the process, they encounter a peasant girl (Leith) and tie her to a tree, where she is tormented by a mentally unbalanced soldier (Mazursky). Before making their escape, the soldiers determine the location of an enemy base and formulate a plot to assassinate its commanding officer.

Rumors spread over the years that Kubrick tried to buy up remaining prints of "Fear And Desire" and have them destroyed, and he definitely did his best to halt public screenings of the picture, but the film should still prove to be an interesting document of a master filmmaker finding his footing. "The ideas we wanted to put across were good...but we didn't have the experience to embody them dramatically," Kubrick told Alexander Walker in 1971. "It was very important to have this experience and to see with what little facilities and personnel one could actually make a film. This experience and the one that followed with 'Killer's Kiss,' which was on a slightly more cushy basis, freed me from any concern again about the technical or logistical aspects of filmmaking."

You'll be able to check it out for yourself when it arrives on home video on October 23rd.

“Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol